What is Qi power and has it been proven to exist scientifically?

Question

What is "Qi power"? Has it been scientifically investigated? How can we achieve this?

Answer 1

It is the idea that you can physically use spirit energy. If you've ever watched Bleach (you should if you haven't. It's awesome), you'll hear them referring to it as reiatsu.

It's totally a myth of course. What old school practitioners of martial arts understood as spirit energy is actually just good old physics and/or body mechanics. When "building up qi", all you're really doing is relaxing your muscles which means there is more "snap" in your technique. Or when you "use qi to root yourself into the ground", all you're really doing is acting like dead weight. If you've ever tried to pick up a friend when his muscles are tense and again when his muscles are limp (dead weight), you'll understand the difference.

You can improve your "qi" by increasing your fast-twitch muscles.

Study on acupuncture: http://consensus.nih.gov/1997/1997Acupuncture107html.htm There's also this hilarious fight between what seems to be an MMA fighter and a chi master: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djUKqxGWj_Y

Answer 2

What do we mean when we say Qi?

It's not possible to scientifically study Qi until people agree on what it is. If it's good body mechanics, then that's perfectly reasonable. Nobody would argue that some people use their body well and can punch hard because they know how to relax and efficiently use their muscles.

But if Qi is supposed to be something supernatural, then it very quickly becomes absurd. People claim they can perform no-touch knockouts with Qi, but they always fail when asked to do it on someone who is not their student. That tells us that their students are playing along--usually due to unconscious social pressure. Note that in that video, Dillman says that Qi is a radio wave. If it's a radio wave, then we can test that, study it, see if it's present, and examine where it comes from. In fact Qi is not a radio wave--Dillman is just making up BS.

Qi debunked--over and over and over

Proponents of Qi will always find a way to keep believing, despite every instance of Qi being shown to be bunk. Skeptical people keep testing claims of Qi and keep finding them to be plainly false. Over and over, whenever we scientifically examine Qi, it turns out to be a parlor trick. Scientists aren't interested in claims so vague that we don't even know what Qi is or what it does. To scientifically study it, first decide what you're trying to prove:

• That people get knocked out sometimes when you punch them hard in the right place?
• That some people hit harder than others?
• That we breathe and our blood circulates?
• That some fat old guy can knock people out without touching them?

Qi is similar to the medieval idea of humours, or astrology. They are both clumsy attempts to describe very real phenomena (people getting sick, people getting knocked out with a punch to the neck) with naive and ultimately incorrect frameworks. It turns out that the planets don't even move the way that astrology describes, and that phlegmatic humours were just a shot in the dark that turned out to be wrong, and that Qi was just a way to vaguely describe medical and martial phenomena that people didn't understand.

The word "Energy"

It's perfectly reasonable to talk about energy in the context of martial arts. Wrestlers and mixed martial artists use it to simply mean "resistance" or "oomph". It's silly to think that the word is anything more than a metaphor or out-of-context hand-waving. It doesn't mean anything like what scientists mean when they talk about electrical energy. It's silly to claim that the word relates to any specific, tangible, yet mystical force.

Answer 3

This article on how Qi came west points out the origins of the confusion around the word:

The commonly accepted idea in the west that Chinese medicine is an energetic, metaphysical medicine was singlehandedly created by a French bank clerk with no training in medicine or ancient Chinese language.

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If you look up qi in a Chinese dictionary, there are ten definitions but not a single one of them is energy. Qi is defined as vital vapor, air, or the essence of air. It can also refer to the function of something (i.e. the qi of an organ would refer to the function of that organ) and the weather. Qi does not mean energy.

A few chinese (born and trained) tai chi guys I've worked with have said "When the old people talked about Qi they meant leg strength".

Answer 4

I think the main thing Qi does is subconsciously boost your own willpower. This may be simplified, but it works like a placebo. If someone believes they have an increased energy about them that will allow them to defeat their opponent, their thought goes less into fear and doubt, more into trusting their body and their knowledge/technique.

When training at home, i find that my spiritual excersises from tai chi have absolutely no effect on my performance. At first i relied on these techniques before training, but now i know the precise way to use each muscle and joint, i do not waste my time.

Being that most people seem to be incredibly biased on the subject, i doubt there is any credible scientific work into the subject. As for 'How can we achive this?', have no doubt in your technique and train for a lifetime. Keep in mind the martial arts grandmasters who claim to use Qi have been training their entire lives and have the skill and willpower to outmatch someone twice their physical strength.

Your Qi or Ki or Chi or Energy or Willpower is really how much energy [as in actual electrical charge] you are willing to put into your body's muscles before deciding that you have lost and will not win the arm wrestle, or will not be able to hold your ground when being pushed, i could go on.

One more thing i have to mention, on my first kung fu lesson, i watched a video of myself, my brother and two friends [with our eyes closed] being pushed forward or backwards by the sifu without him touching us, we were told this was Qi. His hand was very close but not close enough to make contact with the skin or hairs so i think this is a combination or two things, - the fact you are expecting to be pushed in one direction -your mind picking up signals such as heat, sounds at a negligible amount you would not normally pay them any attention and/or [i would like to believe, because it's cool] minute interference in your electric circuits due to the radiation given off by another persons electric circuit in close proximity. Either way it is nothing supernatural.

I used to believe in Qi when i started martial arts until i realized it was, as i say, a placebo.

Answer 5

Many of the other answers discuss the rational Western view of qi (or chi or ki)--that it is a mythical "wind," "power," "spirit," or "energy" claimed by traditional Chinese medicine, Daoist cosmology, and traditional martial arts heritage to be the primary invigorating force in human beings. It's a popular idea, with analogs across many cultures. It's the "ki" in Korean or Japanese arts. It's echoed in yoga and elsewhere.

The rational, Western, scientific view is that it doesn't exist. It's a concept inherited from an ancient world that did not understand how physics, biology, and medicine really work, and so invented a poetic, shamanistic, religious story as though they did.

As a rational Western scientist, I don't disagree with this skepticism.

But...

Whether you believe qi is a "real," tangible thing/force may not be the most important issue.

My experience is that training as though qi is a thing is genuinely helpful even if you don't believe it's real. How can that be? Because considering, talking about, and training qi focuses attention on useful aspects of what we feel, how we physically act, and what we intend to do that we would not otherwise be focusing on.

In training marital arts, acrobatics, dance, and other motion-involved activities, many of the elements of kinesthetics, balance, and proprioception are subtle learned capabilities--things we must learn to do, feel, or feel comfortable with that are not necessarily "built in" or entirely natural. Considering qi can focus our attention on gathering and emitting energy--a focus that is functionally useful, even if it's only a metaphor.

There is actually a lot more precedent for this type of model in Western thought than you might think. Legal fictions, for example, are places courts and legislatures assume a set of facts or circumstances that are not strictly true--because it's useful to do so. Philosophy--whether ancient or modern--is replete with such assumptions. And the clincher: So is modern science and mathematics. See e.g. electrical engineering, quantum mechanics and string theory, which eagerly use models of virtual and imaginary constructs when "the math works out better that way."

So be a skeptic about qi if you like, or outright disbeliever. I am! But that doesn't mean you shouldn't consider or use the metaphor as a martial arts (and motion arts) training tool. I do, with good success.

Answer 6

It's not so complicated. Chi is nothing but a precise experience that, when recognized, leads you on. We can not arrive at near-perfection in our movements and body dynamics and breathing and application of force by reasoning or by drawing diagrams on a blackboard, we only arrive there through our experience.

Chi means cultivating a feeling; it is the cultivation of that special feeling we have when we move or stand and breathe, walk and apply force in a perfect way. By cultivating that feeling, we develop our capacity in a very concrete way (of course a good method is needed!). It's not supernatural, on the contrary it is the way of nature; it can look supernatural to observers just as gymnasts or acrobats or skaters or riders can look supernatural to untrained spectators.

Everybody uses "chi"; doing it consciously and with good method helps a lot. That's all.

Answer 7

Qi is a term that gets used to mean a lot of things, and the most common usage as an independent energy force, is regularly shown to have no evidence supporting it. That said, here's some ideas of the different things people mean when they talk about qi:

Muscle & Joint Activation

"Try to move my arm! You can't! My qi is what keeps it up!" A lot of these are good uses of body mechanics - often positions that allow you to use both agonist and antagonist muscles together for structural efficiency in holding static positions, or intelligent use of positioning and muscle chains for dynamic movements.

Activating some of these muscles often works best with a bit of visualization or movement that seems completely mental - "Hold your arm out, point at something in distance, try to reach it with your fingers, as if you were extending your energy beyond your fingers - seen how strong your arm is now? See how hard it is to pull it down? This is Qi."

Although thinking of energy flowing to different parts of your body, or beyond your body can help you do stuff like this, you can replicate the same results with good body coaching in other terms, so it's not any kind of energetic force.

The flipside, especially used in martial arts, is that you can "feel their qi by touch" which mostly is reading the intent of the person's movements because you can feel subtle changes in their balance and muscle tension - basketball players do this all the time when they stick someone.

Assessment of several body functions

If you end up studying acupuncture or tradition chinese medicine, they may use the word qi, but you find out there's over a dozen qi types referred to in the body: "circulatory qi", "Heart qi", "digestion qi" etc.

In this case, when you assess someone and try to figure out how to help them, the quality of the individual qi is looking at the combined results of several body functions working together - your digestion for example involves your stomach, gallbladder, liver, small and large intestine, etc.

In this sense, it's basically clumping a lot of organs together into a larger system, and it's not something to prove or disprove anymore than it's a convenient way to assess overall health, much in the same way doctors say "Circulatory system" without necessarily talking about each part.

Breath

Many translate qi as "wind" or "breath" so it's not a hard guess as to why this is the way it gets used sometimes. No breathing = dead, breathing = alive, so it's not hard to see how a lot of folks would see this as the sign or source of life energy. An old Chinese folk idea is that everyone has a limited number of breaths they get before they die in life, so slowing the breathing extends your lifespan.

Life Energy

This is the usual method talked about, which involves the usual point of qi pathways, acupuncture, acupressure, and even action at a distance. So far, no scientific study has proven or matched 1:1 to traditional Chinese medicine theory, martial arts theories, or meditation/yoga type work in this manner. Several studies have reported minor but notable benefits for several things (pain relief, increased mobility of limbs, lowered blood pressure), but nothing has matched completely.

How can we scientifically study this?

Well, lots of studies are being made all the time. Including in China, Taiwan, Singapore and many places where TCM is already a major part of the society.

If you want to study outside the medicine side, I would be looking first to understand explicitly what you're trying to get from it, since, with so many definitions, and people often using qi for any/all of them, you would want to structure your experiments to test for just one of them.

A secondary and useful context is to also understand that anyone advocating a skill or ability with qi is probably extremely varied in terms of skillfulness and training. Outside of China's TCM system, which is a fairly modern construction, everyone got individualized training of different theories, quality and ability even within the same "school" or lineage.

And a lot of these things also underwent a lot of destabilizing factors that made it difficult to assure transmission - look up the history of civil war and famine in 20th century China where 40 million people dying in a short period is kind of a regular occurrence. Stack on top the Cultural Revolution driving a lot of people out who have these skills or schools and you can see even people who claim the same lineage may have very different theoretical understandings and practices of qi.

So I would probably add a third layer, which is even after you narrow down what you're testing for, I'd probably also sort out the people you'd be testing based on what they claim their theory base is of qi - since it may drastically affect what they're really doing and what outcomes are the result.

Answer 8

Whether Qi can be measured by science is still difficult question. Accordingly there is much room for individual interpretation.

I have found the Chinese are more drawn to studying relationships between things than Westerners. We tend to like to understand the thing, on its own, then study how it relates to others.

Accordingly, when we set up a "scientific test," the first thing we do is hold all of the details fixed, then perform the test over and over to build up statistical significance.

However, a key feature of this test is the assumption that the observer does not affect the test. This becomes an issue with placebo effects, and becomes a frustrating issue with quantum mechanics, where observing a particle actually changes it's state unpredictably.

It appears to me that Qi is found in the interaction between the martial artist and his foe (or friend). Qi seems to capture the power of adapting to your opponent quickly and fluidly. If you succeed at a strike, you never simply assume that strike beats that opponent. You assume it beat that opponent that time. The opponent will not give you the same opening again, so you use Qi to find the next opening.

In the end, Qi arts seem to show up statistically in that they are repeatable skills. However, they prove remarkably frustrating to quantify as they rely on the interaction between the two individuals, so you cannot measure it if you remove the opponent.

And, if you want, you are free to treat that as "metaphysical." Such interactions are frustratingly difficult to capture with Western science. If you want to declare "the physical world is what Western Science claims it is," then Qi is metaphysical. If you don't like the idea of it being metaphysical, then I am yet to come across any reason to assume it could not be physical... just really hard to pin down. If you prefer a definition along the pines of "the physical world has rules," then Qi may be physical, because there are well recognized ways to "build Qi" and "issue Qi" according to rules.

Edit: after a very very long conversation with Dave, it appears that there is a fundamental gap between Qi and science in some people's mind. Qi is most effectively understood as a whole, and you grow towards its finer details. Science, in many Western people's mind, is only concerned with information that can be gathered from isolating the small individual pieces, breaking their connections, then building them up again according to the smaller behaviors. If you subscribe to that approach, Qi will be proven or disprove scientifically the day science is advanced enough to completely define and model your "self," predicting all of your behaviors. Fortunately for us, it is no where near that point!

Answer 9

Qi is a Chinese word, represented as 氣 in Traditional Chinese and 气 in Simplified Chinese. It is a very complicated topic to explain, and as you can see by the answers here, is neigh impossible to explain in a pithy Q&A format. The closest one gets is the literal translation, which is simply "air" or perhaps "breath." However, one of the strange parts of learning Chinese is that many of their words capture relations, not things. The literal translation of "breath" is applicable because the primary relationships with which qi is described are those of the body. It is my opinion that one can get reasonably close to understanding qi by studying the relationship between the body and the breath. However, I readily admit that this is not a definition, merely an direction one migh choose to pursue exploration.

There has not been much success identifying definition for Chi in a language which permits scientific testing, so that should answer one of your questions. For many, this is the end of the argument. However, there are many things which we find useful which do not have scientific definitions. Consider, as an example, "love." There is no scientific definition for "love." There have been attempts to define it chemically, such as through oxytocin, but every single one of these scientifically defined wordings falls flat when compared to the feeling that nearly every individual has felt at some point in their life.

In the case of "love," there is clearly something there, we simply lack a scientifically testable phrasing to define it. "Chi" is the same way. There is clearly something there, because the Chinese were able to build countless martial arts around the concept, we just lack a scientifically testable phrasing to define it.

However, we can talk about love. We can talk about the connection. We can talk about the passion. We can talk about many facets of love until we consistently agree on what love generally is. Then we can say "I am in love," and everyone around you knows what it means, even though that phrase cannot be translated scientifically.

There is a dark side of this: it is easy to try to make our feelings match the descriptions of the facets of love. Consider high school, where many individuals first start to really experience emotions described as "love." In this early phase, we spend a great deal of effort making it look like we are in love, while not actually deepening love. We make sure our "love" fits all of the descriptions, but often lack the substance beneath. There was recently a fad where kids were giving their passwords to their significant other because "you're supposed to trust those you love." Obviously this misinterpretation had tremendous consequences for these kids.

So the Chinese masters usually speak in parable when describing "qi." They feel an attempt to define qi to be anything besides itself is folly. They want you to practice martial arts under them, and they will slowly show you what qi means to you. That way you never trust qi without truly having it in the first place. That should answer your last question: the best way to "achieve qi" is to go train under a master that believes qi exists and have them show you. It is my belief that those who say "qi is bogus" have been exposed to a teacher who learned what qi should look like, and not something that is actually qi, and is selling that experience to others. (how to identify a snake-oil art vs. a real art is very good question every qi practitioner should ask, but that's a different topic entierly)

The first question is the challenge: What is qi. Hopefully by this point you can tell that I am not going to give an answer. However, with respect to martial arts, I believe it is valid to point out a few common facets of qi usage, and to provide a few tests that practitioners claim demonstrates qi.

The single most common facet of the use of qi in martial arts that I have seen is integration. Qi is not demonstrated simply by using a single muscle to do a single thing. Qi is always expressed in tasks which link many muscles together to accomplish a task, often muscles quite far apart on the body.

There is a classic "training exercise" for Qi, where you hold out your arm, and the teacher pushes down on it. For most people, it is very hard to resist this force because the teacher applies it with a great deal of mechanical advantage. The student is then instructed through several verbal and physical cues to changes the way he carries his body, and change the way he is thinking about the task (both are important). The teacher then applies force again, often more force, and the student finds it easy to resist. The teacher will then explain that you are using Qi.

Is this Qi something unique that cannot be explained any other way? I leave that to you and your teacher to decide. However, it will be very clear that the adjustments you made gave you the opportunity to integrate many muscles beyond your arm. You will use your pectorals. You will use the intercostal muscles (which many of us do not have strong conscious control over). You'll even engage your leg muscles in direct support of an activity that appears to be totally arm based. The integration of these muscles and the neurons that trigger them certainly plays a part in the Qi (or may even be the Qi, if you and your teacher wish to believe that).

Another facet of qi that is very common is "awareness." The teachings I am aware of for using qi in martial arts all use the term "awareness." Tasks which use qi effectively are rarely one-size-fits-all motions. Qi is not used in a mere punch. Qi is used in a punch whose path is changed mid-flight to avoid a block because you were aware the block was coming.

In my opinion, this is where the uniqueness of qi based martial arts lie. Many arts will teach you the basic mechanics of many many actions, and then slowly allow a teacher to help you integrate these into one solid framework, and then to become aware of your opponent. The Chinese martial arts which use qi teach you the techniques for integrating things into a framework, and how to be aware of your opponent, and then teach you how to develop your own mechanics within that framework. Qi is one of the concepts they use to teach a very difficult concept early rather than teaching it late.

There are, of course, many "tests" of qi. Science has yet to discover any of them which exceeds the physical limits of the materials involved. However, many of them are extremely difficult to reproduce unless you have trained using qi (which can readily be translated as they reward the behaviors that martial art recognizes... which occurs in every martial art). Some of the more interesting are:

Shaolin Needle through glass - The practitioner throws a needle at a pane of glass, breaking clean through to the other side (usually into a balloon to provide quick feedback to the audience that the glass broke). There's no technical reason why this could not be done by anyone. However, you have to get the angle of the needle just right, or it glances off. This is incredibly difficult to do. Mythbusters tested this as a myth, and ended up "debunking" it because the major league pitcher they brought in could not do it. However, it is trivial to find kung fu practitioners which can do this act, and they will claim that they are using qi to do it. Whatever they are using, qi or otherwise, it allows them to maintain more control over a thrown needle than a professional thrower can reproduce.

Bouncing - Bouncing is a neat trick done against a partner who does not resist. That partner holds up their arms to provide some structure, and you touch them. You then send them flying into a padded mat behind them. This sounds easy, except that you do so without any noticeable force. If someone placed their hands between yours and theirs, they should feel nothing. The partner does not resist, but they shouldn't feel like they are helping either. As with the needle through glass trick, if you analyze it with a camera, you will see that the partner actually falls off balance and then twitches as they lose balance, providing the energy and momentum. However, the fact that people can do it, even to a non-resisting opponent, without force, suggests that there is something to their claims that there is a "qi" thing that they are applying which is not simply "nothing."

In my personal path through martial arts, I have found nothing in these tests which suggests they do not have scientific explanations. However, I have found those scientific explanations do a very poor job of assisting you in learning how to do them. The tests of qi are extremely difficult to do unless you have trained in an art which uses qi. This should be no surprise to anyone -- the entire point of martial arts tests is to create something which is difficult to do in any way except the correct way! Breaking bricks is the same way. It's a demonstration which, if you haven't learned the basics, generally goes very poorly.

The question remains, is qi effective for fighting. This is a difficult question to answer. It all depends on your outlook. However, if you narrow your outlook to "what is best in MMA tournaments," you'll find that the qi based martial arts are very unpopular. In that environment they do not do well. However, you get to decide what metrics are meaningful for you in picking a martial art. Consider Roy Nelson, who is a UFC fighter. Nobody would call his style "kung fu," but he openly trains kung fu as part of his regimen. He says it helps with the subtleties. If you think of integrated actions combined with an awareness of the subtle movements of your opponents as what qi based martial arts train for, there's something to be said for that.

EDIT: As a closing, to attempt to address some of Dave's comments (in a highly tangential fashion), I'd like to address the question of "does qi give you supernatural powers," without actually answering it. We train for martial arts. We do so for many years, spending a great deal of effort at it. Why? Because we learn something. In any martial art I have been part of, I have been told that the single greatest limitation we have is self-doubt. Every martial art pushes you to do something you would consider "supernatural" at the time, because you cannot do it. This does not say the act is supernatural, just that it feels that way when you first do it. Then, afterwards, you restructure your way of thinking to realize "oh, that has been natural the whole time, I just never knew it!" It is my opinion that one of the great powers all martial arts give us is a set of tools to explore the pliable boundary between what we believe to be natural and what we believe to be supernatural. Each martial art provides a slightly different approach to this, and the value of those lessons should be included whenever one compares martial arts.

Answer 10

Let us try to combine the descriptions an experience of a 3000 year old culture with the scientific accievments of our time:

To my understanding Qi means the energy or a fighter has available. That is to say, if I am tired or exhausted my Qi is low, but when I am well rested I have a lot of Qi.

That would fit the answers others have provided like "Qi is the power of your kick".

It also would also provide a scientific prove that greter Qi can be attained trough a healthy life style and MA practice, the latter allowing you to create more powerful techniques through more precise execution.

Also certain breathing techniques are known to calm your body, thereby removing stress, thereby allowing a regeneration and increased energy.

Finally, from an ethymological viewpoint, I the last syllable of "energy" sounds a lot like "Qi" (Chi).

Answer 11

Qi is your life force energy. When you die, your life force leaves the body and the skin and flesh become whitish in hue.

You Qi is strengthened in a number of ways (I'm only a piker here.). The breathing methods in traditional karate (as well as other martial arts, yoga, etc.) are a primary way of building up your Qi. Diet, rest, and exercise are also elements of building up strong Qi. Again, I have only a layman's understanding.

The martial arts applications of Qi progress from increased health, to increased physical strength, to levels where the practitioner can mentally direct Qi to areas of the body for protection or to generate force by itself (advanced).

Martial arts exercises, starting with basic techniques, builds Qi through the proper breathing and alignment of the body, which then facilitates the circulation of Qi throughout the body.... leading to the enhancements described above....

Qi, as pure energy, is problematic to sense or measure. As one poster comments, empirical evidence of Qi can be seen in the pink color in one's palm's, the breaking of bricks and boards (especially good vid of the chinese doing this.), and the resistance of the body to what would be certain injury (chinese vids again).

Answer 12

The Qi power has not been proven scientifically, because currently there is no way to measure or observe Chi by using physical scientific instruments. However there were some attempts to investigate it scientifically and below you can find few sources.

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There is National Geographic video called 'Fight Science – Qi Gong Tested' where scientists trying to reveal the truth about Qi power.

The video demonstrates that Chi can protect the body and provides immunity. Shaolin monk with 13-year Qi Gong training and experience (by using the inner Chi) demonstrates power of Chi by withstanding a blow from a baseball bat, and a spear to the neck (and he remains undamaged which in normal condition it would result death).

The conclusion was:

Even having the most advanced (scientific) tools, there is currently no way to measure Chi. But whatever Shaolin warrior gong technique is, there is no denying its results. For now this hidden secret defence will remain a mistery.

Video: Fight Science - Qi Gong Tested by National Geographic

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There is also another video which shows a Kung Fu Master that proves that you really can break two brick blocks with just your hand and without the use of trickery. He demonstrated also the push technique (no inch punch) by channeling Chi energy from his body to opponent body without using any physically pull-back.

It is all about ability to channel inner Chi energy and reverting it into Gang (power).

Video: Kung Fu Strength by National Geographic

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See also Bruce Lee's One Inch Punch By Shi Yan Ming monk video who demonstrates secret of his power - Chi energy. He generated 772 pounds of force on face punch and his One Inch Punch was 1.7 times more injurious than a 30mph car crash with modern safety features.

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However studies has found that Chi movements within the body can be tracked by the heat detector (source).

Answer 13

1. What is "Qi power"?

Master Waysun Liao describes it as

a high-frequency vibration controlled by the mind and integrated by mind/body coordination into an ultra-fast wave-like unit.

Master BK Frantzis says it is

a specific form of chi that integrates all the various energies of the body into one unified chi that can manifest physical power.

I got both of these quotes from my teacher's article Internal Strength: What It Is (And Isn't)

2. Has it been scientifically investigated?

We are all roughly familiar with the scientific method. If you are not, information is freely available on google. That said, there are many approaches to the scientific method. If you mean have any randomized, double-blind studies been performed on internal masters performing superhuman feats, then I don't know of any.

However, if you are asking whether less rigorous testing been performed then the answer is yes! This page contains videos of people breaking sugar canes balanced on eggs without damaging the eggs. The rigidity of the sugar canes would have crushed the eggs had they been broken by external strength.

This is a video of my teacher breaking the bottom of two bricks without breaking the top one. Some people persist in disbelief by breaking only the bottom of two bricks using a sledgehammer. It is important to note that, even if my sifu did external conditioning of his hands (which he doesn't), human hands are not sledgehammers.

The distinction becomes more obvious if we imagine he'd posted a video of himself shooting flames from his hands or harming someone from a distance. Although an untrained individual can shoot flames using a flamethrower or harm someone from a distance using a gun, that does not mean shooting flames from your hands is unremarkable. Please do not become insulted by my comparison, I only want to point out that replicating results using tools does not invalidate the original results.

Many people seem to believe that, because they are not familiar with any randomized, double-blind studies, there must be no such thing and internal martial artists are either lying or incompetent. However, this is not the case.

3. How can we achieve this?

Sifu Wong Kiew Kit says there are three requirements for attainment in any art: the method, the teacher, and the student. You must have a good method for attaining the desired result, a teacher possessing the result you desire who is able to pass it on to you, and then you have to be a good student and practice diligently what your teacher tells you to. Regards!